In the introduction to the present essay mention was made of some sonnets composed by Immanuel in the Italian language, which show that he must have been well versed in the literature of his native country. Three of them were published for the first time some thirty years ago in a book entitled Letteratura e filosofia, opuscoli per Pasquale Garofalo, Duca di Bonita (Naples, 1872). Perhaps it will not be out of place, in conclusion, to quote one of them here. Its English translation is somewhat as follows:—
“Love has never read the Ave Maria. It knows no law, no creed, neither does it hear nor see: it is boundless. Love is an unrestricted, omnipotent power, which insists on obtaining what it craves for. . . . Love does not suffer itself to be deprived of its pride and power by a Paternoster, or by any other charm; neither is it afraid of carrying into effect what it is fond of. Amor alone knows what causes me grief; whatever I may offer him as an excuse, he meets me always with the same answer: It is my will and wish.”
Footnotes:
[87-1] It should be added that the eminent Dante scholar, Theodor Paur, was strongly inclined to doubt the authenticity of these poems, and that he was sceptical with regard to the whole question of the friendship between Immanuel and Dante. On the other hand, he readily admitted that Immanuel imitated the Commedia in his Ha-Topheth-ve-Ha-Eden. (See Jahrbuch der deutschen Dante-Gesellschaft, III, 1871, pp. 423–462.)
[92-1] See Graetz, Geschichte, VII; and Güdemann, Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur abendländischen Juden während des Mittelalters.
[X]
[KALONYMOS BEN KALONYMOS]
A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY SATIRIST
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were in France, Spain, and Italy several Jewish savants whose literary labours did much to keep alive among Jews generally a taste for Hebrew literature as well as for philosophy and general science. Among them was Kalonymos ben Kalonymos, the subject of the present essay. He was born at Arles, a small town in Provence, in the year 1287, being the son of Kalonymos ben Meir, who bore the title of Nasi (“the Prince”) and occupied a prominent position in the local community. The management of civil affairs was at that time in the hands of the resident archbishop, who confined all the Jews within a single street, although their predecessors had been permitted, since the middle of the fourth century, to live wherever they chose[[103-1]]. In this ghetto Kalonymos first saw the light, and there he also spent a great part of his early youth, devoting much time to the study of Biblical and Rabbinical lore, as well as the acquisition of the classical and Oriental languages. He subsequently continued his studies at a school in the neighbouring town of Salon, under the tuition of Moses of Beaucaire and Astruc of Noves[[103-2]].